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Yesterday I was walking back to my home when I head a soft thud. A pigeon fell onto the pavement a foot in front of me, from the sky. Another pigeon flew down and stood next to it.

I was momentarily confused, then I looked up and there on the churchyard wall was a sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus.

The pavement is quite busy, so I popped the dead pigeon (totally dead - how amazingly efficient to be able to cleanly kill such a large bird with one strike) over the wall into the churchyard. I was worried the sparrowhawk wotuld have been put off, but within two minutes it was back, plucking and feeding in comparatvie peace.

I've seen sparrowhawks before, but never seen the actual strike. I feel totally honoured and excited.

Poor pigeon.

#sparrowhawk #raptors #hunter #pigeonpredator #naturalhistoryillustration #naturalscienceillustration #sciart #birdart #paitningbirds #Accipiternisus #hayonwye ...

Here's another seasonal fungus illustration. This is Russula xerampelina, one of the varied Russula species. English names include Crab Brittlegill, Shrimp Mushroom, Woodland Russula, Herring Mushroom.

Why such fishy names? This species smells of boiled shellfish when mature. I couldn't figure out if it tasted fishy too, websites mentioned it being good to eat and edible, and having a delicate flavour. I've not been lucky enough to eat it, so can't pass an opinion....

This species grown in conifer woods. It has a red to dark purplish cap, white gills which become ochre with age, and a white stipe which is often flushed pink.
It's actually a whole complex of similar species. Russulas have tons of variability in colour, which makes identifying them to species level tough. This one can have an olive green cap, yellow cap, purplish, dark brown, or red wine coloured cap. And everything in between.

They're also known as brittlegills.

There's some fascinating medicinal properties to this fungus; it's been shown to be effective in fighting Sarcomas and Erlich solid cancers in mice (Ohtsuka et al., 1973). It's also been shown to inhibit growth of the parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium falciparum. (Lovy et al., 2000). HOW COOL?

Source: https://ultimate-mushroom.com/edible/93-russula-xerampelina.html; which is an excellent site for all things fungal.

#fungi #fungus #russula #brittlegill #foraging #ediblefungi #foodforfree #botanicalillustration #sciart #mushrooms #watercolor #watercolour #fungusidentification #russulaxerampelina #crabbrittlegill #shrimpmushroom #herringmushroom #mushroom #mycology ...

It's fungus season, so I thought I'd post this glorious fungi, the Amethyst deceiver Laccaria amethystina.

It's a real stunner. The cap becomes browner with age, but it truly is this vivid violet colour. The cap will become pale mauve or white if the weather is dry, and dries from the middle outwards.

I've seen it growing in damp moss and leaf litter in forested areas. Despite being such a stunning species, it's not even that rare!

It's also edible, although it might take rather a lot of searching to gather enough to make a decent supper....

The gills are purple, but spores are white. it's not uncommon for fungi to have spores that are a very different colour to the gills, this is why when you're identifying fungus you should always take the time to do a spore print.

#fungi #fungus #mushrooms #moss #ukfungi #mycelium #fruitingbody #deceiver #amethystdeceiver #Laccariaamethystina #amethyst #purple #purplefungus #purplefungi #toadstool #mycology #botanicalart #botanicalillustration #mycology ...